United Empire loyalists

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Jubilee Edition-

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History and Historiettes

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I United Empire Loyalists I

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BY

EDWARD HARRIS

Barrister- AT- Law

1^1

TORONTO GLOBE.—" Intensely interesting and amusing."
TORONTO MAIL AND £Af/'//?£.-" Of^ fascinating interest."
TORONTO WORLD.—'' Of exceeding interest."

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Price,

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TORONTO :

WILLIAIVI BRIGGS

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ADDRESS

DELIVERED BY

MR. EDWARD HARRIS

.1/ tht MeetiiKj of the. United Empire Loyalist •i' A-fsociation

of OiUario, Fehniary 11th, 1897, at the

Canadian Tiuslifiite, Toronto.

After the lapse of a century, American historians, Tardy justice,
descended from men who fought for the Revolution,
having access to papers and the secret correspondence
of the time, are writing disinterestedly, and with
historical accuracy, towards those Americans who
thought and fought against the Revolution. The
subject has become one of interest to the American
student. In lighter literature, also, we now have from
time to time a full display, in portraiture as well as
text, of colonial dames, daughters of the Revolution,
and American patriot families.

On the Loyalist side, our ancestors have left it as a
legacy to their grandchildren to wonder what manner
of men and Women they were to survive the horrors
of banishment.^ driven to desperation, impoverished,
and escaping with their lives to a wilderness. The
Huguenots and French emigres had civilized coun-
tries to escape to, and follow various handicrafts and
intellectuaroqcupations. The Moors were well treated

Sir Charles
Russell.

Vindictive
Spoliation.

Every Third
American a
Loyalist.

when banished from Spain, and Spaniards had equi-
table treatment when the Dutch obtained freedom.
The revocation of the Edict of Nantes was civil death
to all Huguenots. The Americans made the treaty of
peace of 1783 worse than civil death to all Loyalists.

Sir Charles Russell, in a recent address delivered in
the States, referring to true civilization, said : " The
true signs are thoughts for the poor and suffering ;
chivalrous regard and respect for- women ; the frank
recognition of human brotherhood : the narrowing of
the domain of mere force as a governing factor in the
world ; the love of ordered freedom ; the abhorrence
of what is mean and cruel and vi\e ; ceaseless devo-
tion to the claims of justice."

The Americans, at the inception and birth of their
Republic, violated every precept of Christianity and
of a boasted civilization, even to confiscating the valu-
able estates of many helpless women. For all time it
is to be a part of American history, that the last
decade of the eighteenth century saw the most cruel
and vindictive act of spoliation recorded in modern
history. The Acadians have been immortalized in
verse, but were there no " Evangelines " among the
Loyalists ? Yea ! and many of them.

It is admitted now, that the American Revolution
was the work of an energetic minorit}^ who succeeded
in committing an undecided and fluctuating majority
to courses for which they had little love, and leading
them step by step to a position from which it was
impossible to recede. Every thiixl American was a
Loyalist, and continued so through every form of
abuse and disaster. In the " Act of Banishment "
passed by Massachusetts in September, 1778, against
the most prominent Loyalist leaders of the State, one
may now read the names of 310 of her citizens — that
list of names reads like the bead-roll of the noblest
and oldest families concerned in founding and up-

building New Enoland civilization, more than sixty
being graduates of Harvard.

The character now given to our ancestors, the fh^e^Loylnst°s^
Loyalists, by the best and most recent American
writers, is that " they dift'ered from their contempor-
-aries of equal virtue, sincerity, and intelligence on the
patriot side in that single quality of loyalty. Almost
without an exception they felt and were ready to
censure, and even to resist, the oppressive measures
of the Mother Country. They believed that calm but
earnest remonstrance would right all wrongs. They
loved their Mother Country'' ; were proud of their rela-
tion to it ; felt secure under its protection, and their
attachment gave assurance of their confidence in its
just intents. They could not persuade themselves
that the Colonies could possibly triumph in a conflict
with her. Their loyalty expressed their dread of
anarchy, and their reverence for constitutional order."

During the contest, as opportunities occurred, these Confiscation.
Loyalists were crippled and impoverished. The
favorite plan for raising money was by confiscation
of their property, and this was resorted to by every
State.

At the Treaty of Peace, 1783, their banishment and Bi?t'e^;"v^°3s^
extermination was a foregone conclusion. The bit-
terest words ever known to have been uttered by
Washington were in reference to them. " He could
see nothing better for them than to recommend
suicide." Sir Guy Carleton wrote in 1783 to the
Minister at Philadelphia to explain the delay in
evacuating 2s ew York :

" The violence in the Americans, which broke out lariltons
soon after the cessation of hostilities, increased the "'"^"''^
number to look to me for escape from suddeli destruc-
tion, bUTt these terrors have of late been so consider-
ably augmented that almost all within these lines
conceive the safety of Ijoth their property and their

lives depends upon being removed by me, which ren-
ders it impossible to say when the evacuation of New
York will be completed. Whether they have just
grounds to assert that there is either no government
for common protection, or that it secretly favors these
proceedings, I shall not pretend to determine : but, as
the daily gazettes and publications furnish repeated
proofs, not only of disregard of the articles of peace,
but as barbarous menaces come from committees
formed in various towns, cities and districts, and even
at Philadelphia, the very place which Congress has
chosen for their residence, I should show an indiffer-
ence to the feelings of humanity, as well as to the
honor and the interests of the nation wdiom I serve,
to leave any of the Loyalists who are desirous to quit
the country, a prey to the violence they conceive they
have so much cause to apprehend."
John Adams' Neither Concrress nor any State made any recom-

Inhumanity. o "^ "

mendation that humane treatment should be meted
out to Loyalists. John Adams had written from
Amsterdam that he would have hanged his own
brother had he taken part against him. There are
many excuses given by American writers for these
acts of atrocity at the close of the war. " There was
exhaustion under a burden of debts and a worthless
currenc}'." " In sheer bewilderment and desperation
the people in many places were in a state of anarchy,
breaking into acts of rebellion." " That to intrude
upon a people thus burdened the claims of those who
had been the allies of the British was simply prepos-
terous."
DecertfCi*nL"ss. Di"- Fraukliu, in his private correspondence, written
while peace negotiations were in progress, made no
disguise that he " thouglit it wise to keep ouj^of the
country those hated British sympathizers who, if
scattered over it, might be mischievous in their iutlu-
ence."

The mob were allowed to commit any outrage or Mob Rule,
atrocity, while the authorities in each State remained
appairenth- indifferent. A sample of Loyalist ill-
treatment, showincr that barVjarit}' ruled, as well as
contiscation and banishment, is to be found in a letter
written October 22nd, 1783, to a Boston friend, and
preserved in New York City Manual, 1870.

" The British are leaving New York every day, and Judg^J Ljn°ch.
last week there came one of the d — d refugees from
New York to a place called Wall Kill, in order to
make a tarry with his parents, where he was taken
into custody immediately. His head and eyebrows
were shaved, tarred and feathered : a hog yoke put on
his neck, and a cowbell thereon — upon his head a very
high hat and feathers were set, well plumed with tar,
and a sheet of paper in front, with a man drawn with
two faces, representing the traitor Arnold and the
devil."

The indifference shown to treaty obligations by Ha^eSeen*'
Congress and the States, and the secret determination
to eradicate everything British from the country, is
now known to have been the deliberate, well-consid-
ered policy of the founders of the Republic. This
timidity, or even call it policy, has continued to the
present time. It is within easy imagination to believe
that those magnificent States, extending from Maine
to Florida, would have depopulated the British Isles
had it not been for the Revolution, and the hatred of
England which survived it. Tlie world had never
offered any such attraction or outlet for immigration.
It ceased to come. The old homes and estates of the
successful rebels, as well as those of the banished
Tories, crumbled to decay. Life was diverted to the
cities, and rural life became a monotonous routine.
There' are a succession of incidents bearing upon this
point, but time permits a reference to two or three
only. In 1812, when America declared war. Napoleon war of 1812.

was at the height of his power, with an army ready
for the invasion of England at Boulogne. England
was exhausted in the contest with him. Her great
War Minister, Pitt, had died broken-hearted. . The
indications were reasonably favorable to a permanent
occupation of the Canadas by the States, and the
extinction of all British interests on this continent.

Tail-twisting. In 1837, and during the Fenian raids of 1866, the
American frontier was openly allowed to be made a
base of operations against Canada. In 1842 the
Maine boundary question disclosed so hostile a feeling-
against Great Britain that Congress would not accept
a boundary obtained by frauds until Daniel Webster,,
the American Commissioner, produced maps and sur-
veys which had been suppressed, which, had they
been disclosed to the British Commissioner, would
have given to Canada one-third of the State of Maine.
The settlement of the Oregon boundary question
showed America's hatred of England to be chronic.
When Confederation of the Canadian Provinces took
place, it was placed on record in the House of Repre-
sentatives that it was disapproved and regarded as a.
menace by the United States. The Venezuela mes-
sagfe was issued at a time when Enofland was believed
to be isolated and without an ally. It showed that-
war could be declared against Great Britain at any
time in ten minutes, upon any pretext ; while an arbi-
tration treaty to secure peace between the two nations
takes protracted consideration. This is the result of
one hundred and twenty years of schooling of the

Detestation of nativc-bom and the emigrant into a detestation of
everything British.

The anti-English feeling in the States after the
Revolution had unexpected results. Although there
were many men of education and refinement among^
the successful patriots, the more cultured and conser-

washington's yativc classcs had been banished. Washington com-

menced his presidency with a Court having the
exelusiveness and codes of precedence adopted in
European countries, and this was continued by two
or three presidents. In the time of Jefferson all such
ceremony was abolished. When the British Am-
bassador presented his credentials at the White House.
Jefferson received him in shirt sleeves and slippers,
Thirty years after the Revolution the class whom
Washington and the cultured Virginians believed
would be prominent in the Union had ceased to repre-
sent anything or have political power. John Adams,
the founder of the Constitution, when venerable in
years, deplored the abolition of a property qualifica-
tion.

The public affairs of the United States during the llfel^/ag^J^
last two years have disclosed that there now exists in
those States a numerous, highly-educated and conser-
vative element, not dissimilar to the banished Loyal-
ists of the last century. Following President Cleve-
land's unhappy 'Venezuela message, the magazines,
reviews, public press, and the pulpit overflowed with
a brilliant series of public utterances, which baffled
for the present the wild schemes of the ever-existing
energetic minority, ready either for war, confiscation,
the debasement of the currency, or Socalistic schemes.

That large communities can be successfully admin- m^nt^°^^'^""
istered by inferior men is a doctrine approaching a
solution in the United States. " In private affairs of
every description, competency on the part of admin-
istrators is the first thing sought for, and the only
thing trusted ; but in private affairs the penalty of
any disregard of this rule comes (luickl3^ In public
affairs the operation of all causes is much slower, and
their action is obscure. Nations take centuries to
fall, and the catastrophe is preceded by a long period
of the process called 'bad government,' in which there

is much suffering and alarm, but not enough to make
the remedy plain."

It may be that there is now going on in the States,
and destined to continue, a voluntary banishment of
the wealthy, the educated, and the refined of many
classes and both sexes. Discontented people are
always in search of new homes. Happily it can never
happen again with the same " terror " as it did to our
ancestors.

There is no doubt that, had the Loyalists been per-
mitted to remain in the States, they would have been
as true to the new Government as they had been to
the old. In Canada their descendants are to be found
among every denomination of Christians. They are
represented in both political parties. At the present
time Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Ontario, the
three great U. E. Loyalist provinces, have Reform
Governments. The Premier of Ontario is descended
from Loyalists on both sides. The Federal Govern-
ment is now a Reform Government, with a French
Catholic Premier. Loj^alty, which in Canada means
a reverence for law and order and a desire to be
peaceably and quietly governed, is not a monopoly of
any party, but is widespread, and evenly distributed
throughout the land.

In this connection the recital of an incident relating
to the loyalty of the Province of Quebec seems proper,
although in no way connected with the U. E. Loyalists.
French-cana- In 1775 three American commissioners, the cele-
brated Dr. Franklin, Mr. Chase, and Charles Carrol,
were thoroughly indoctrinated and instructed to repre-
sent to the Canadians at Montreal and Quebec that the
object of the Americans was to defeat the project of
the British Government against colonial freedom, and
to extend to the French- Canadians, whom the Ameri-
cans regarded as brothers, the means of assuring their
own independence.

dian Loyalty.

The commissioners left New York on the 2nd of
April, l77o, and reached Montreal on the 29th.

The commissioners were told by the French-Cana-
dians, represented by their bishop, tliat since the
acquisition of Canada by Great Britain the people had
had not one aggression upon their rights to complain
of ; that, on thd contrar}-, the British Government had
observed all treaty stipulations ; that she had sanc-
tioned and covei'ed with the segis of her power the
olden jurisprudence and ancient customary legal prac-
tice of Canada, all being done with a respectful
scrupulosity which merited grateful acknowledgment,
and that the British Government ha(i left them noth-
ins: to wish for. The failure of the commissioners to
corrupt the French-Canadians was complete. Nor
should it be forgotten that, had they been less firm in
their loyal t}-, or been untrue to their treatj^ obliga-
tions, every vestige of British power would have been
swept from the Canadas. The full details of these
interesting historical proceedings will be found in
Garneau's " History of Canada."

Readers of Parkman's works will remember that all Parkmans
voyageurs, whether French or English, went from the
St. Lawrence river to the Detioit river by the south
shore of Lake Erie. In 1792 south-western Ontario
was an unbroken wilderness. Without General Sim-
coe's report, which was made in 1793, no Loyalist
would have ventured the journey from New Bruns-
wick and the Atlantic States to take up land there.
In General Simcoe's report, which was favorable, the
people had absolute confidence.

It will here be noted that while the Loyalist migra- Migration of
tion to the Bay of Quinte and the shores of Lake ^^^ "-ovahsts.
Ontario took place in 178:3 and 1784, that to the shores
of Lake Erie took place ten years later, and the influx

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continued for a further twelve years, all showjing the
unrelenting hatred and unforgiving spirit of the
patriots towards those who had but recently been
friends, neighbors, and not infrequently brothers
and blood relations, and who had fought shoulder-to
shoulder together in subduing the French and their
Indian allies.
Mrs. Moody. In 1840, fifty years after the Loyalists went into the

wilderness, impoverished, to lay the foundation of the
great Province of Ontario, Mrs. Moody wrote her book,
" Rouohinof it in the Bush." It ran through several
editions. In the preface she stated that her object
was the hope of deterring well-educated people from
settling in Ontario on account of the climate and the
hardship.
Jamesons Mrs. Jamcsou about the same time arrived in

tears. Toronto, and in her " Winter Studies and Summer

Rambles " says of Toronto : " I did not expect much,
but for this I was not prepared. I went to bed last
night in tears. The cold is so intense that the ink
freezes as I write, and my fingers stiffen .round my
pen. A glass of water by my bedside, within a few
feet of the hearth, heaped with logs of oak and maple,
and kept burning all night long, is a solid mass of ice
in the morning."
Head^s^chMiy At the samc period Sir Francis Head published his
despatches. ^^^^ ^^ Canada called " The Emigrant." He says :
" My house at Toronto was warmed hy hot air from a
large oven, with fires in all the sitting-rooms, never-
theless the wood for my grate, which was piled close
to the fire, often remained till night covered with
the snow which was on it, when first deposited there
in the morning ; and as a further instance of the
climate I may add that several times, while my mind
was very warmly occupied in writing my despatches,
I found my pen full of a lump of stuff that appeared
to be honey, but whicli proved to be frozen ink.

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At;ain, after washinf^ in the morninr^, when I took
some money which had lain all night on my table, I at
first fancied that it had become sticky until I dis-
covered that the sensation was caused by its freezing
to my fingers.

" I one day inquired of a fine, ruddy, honest-looking Brittle toes.
man, who called upon me, and whose toes and instep
on each foot had been amputated, how the accident
happened. He told me that walking one cold day,
without feeling the slightest pain, first one toe, then
another, broke off, as if they had been bits of brittle
sticks."

At the date these books were written, and by people advance-guard
who had ever}^ comfort money and public position '^^^l^^ wiider-
could give, the Loyalist families had been the advance
guard in the wilderness, building up the country, and
had suffered hardships for fifty years. Their sufferings
and privations are as yet an untrodden field for the
historian, the novelist, and the poet. Long before
another fifty years what was called patriotism in the
last century may have run its course, and to have the
blood of the banished Loyalists in one's veins may be
the greater boast on this continent. Already in the
older states men of light and leading are asking
themselves, " What Washington and his Ring were
at," in separating from the only stable government in
the world.

My grandfather escaped with his family to New
Brunswick in 1788. In 1794, at the supfSfe-stion of
General Simcoe, he became the first settler in the
Long Point country, on the Lake Erie shore. He was
an educated and successful business man of New
Jersey. His wife was a colonial dame, or what we
now call a " society woman." The banished Loyalists
were, with few exceptions, educated and refined
people. They were the successful representatives of
trade, commerce, agriculture and professions, and the
various occupations in the ^Id colonies.

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The usual log-house was built by mj^ grandfather
in 1794, and in it one hundred years ago my dear
mother was born. It is from her that I get many of
those early reminiscences, some of which I shall relate.

Buckskin Slips. jj^ q^q abscuce of all other clothing and supplies,
the less fortunate settlers, and, as a rule, all the men •
used the skins of animals. Tlie girls in milder
weather usually wore a buckskin .slip. " White
goods" were not known in those days. Miss Sprague,
a fine girl of fourteen or fifteen years, had ^een in
my mother's kitchen with her parents, and noticed
washing going on in the usual way, by boiling in
soap and water. A few days after Polly Sprague
took advantage of her father's and mother's absence
to wash her only garment, the buckskin slip. This
she did by boiling it. We all know the action of
heat on leather, and Polh^ had to retreat into the
potato hole under the floor. When her parents
returned they soon found the shrunken slip, and then
the girl. She was brought down to my mother's in a
barrel, on an ox-team, four miles, and temporarily
clothed until more buckskin coald be found. This

Miss Sprague's granddaughter is now Lad}' B , in

England.

From my mothers many tales I should sa}' there
were amusing incidents daily. Another young lady,
according to custom in those daj^s, was prayed for
in the congregation, "as having joined the Church
and given up all her worldly and frivolous ways, and
had given all her trinkets, gewgaws, and finer}^ to her
3'ounger sister." Those were days when on no pre-
tence whatever was any adornment or apparel of any
kind permitted to leave the family. It is quite easy
to understand the intrcfduction of the crazy quilt.

Prompt ]\larriaffes in those early days were peculiar.

Marriages. ^ " . >. ^ x

Courtships were short. My father and mother were
visited one morning about 1825 by Mr. McDonald, of

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Goderich, the young surveyor for the Canada Com-
pany, and afterwards Sheriff for the Huron District.
He had ridden through the forest from Goderich to
Long Point Bay, having heard that Judge Mitchell had
two fine daughters, and desired my father's and
mother's opinion as to which one they would recom-
mend him to marry. The elder was recommended,
and they all went to the Judge's house, a few miles
oK The eldest daughter was interviewed, and the
next morning she left for Goderich married, travelling
150 miles on horseback, on a pillion behind her hus-
band. No one but a surveyor, and in the employ of
the Canada Company, could have accomplished that
feat in those days.

My father and mother were married by a magis- Dissenters,
trate, there being no clergyman within sixty miles.
Dissenting clergymen, especially Methodists and Bap-
tists, not beino; allowed to solemnize marriage, was the
cause of much irritation.

About 1818 a regular built, well-educated Epis- First Rector,
copal rector located in the Long Point settlement.
A country couple came down on an ox-team from
about twelve miles north, through a bush road,
to the rectory to be married. The rector wanted
them to go on one mile farther to the church. That
was his rule. As the couple had a long return jour-
ney to make through the forest, the man remonstrated.
The rectory — it is there yet — consisted of a house 16
X 18, with one room on ground floor, with a ladder
outside to go to the one bedroom above. This lower
room the rector's wife had carpeted with a carpet
made with her own hands. Wedding parties in those
days were mud from head to foot. The man became
very abusive when the rector's wife suggested that
that they be married in the barn. The girl stepped
forward and checked him and said, " No, John, no : Q^^
we will be married in the stable. If our Saviour Pi-ecedents.

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could be born in a stable, I guess I can be married in
one." And so they were.

In those days a settler could not exist without a
wife, and suitable girls were indexed by industrious
young settlers, as American heiresses are now by the
impoverished nobility of Europe.

When marriage licenses were first introduced, and
took the place of calling in church, many absurd
things happened. My father was the first issuer. A
man came to him one day from about forty miles off,
and asked him if that license he got was all right.
My father asked him when he got it. He said, " Oh,
about seven or eight months ago." (In case of a
change of Governor, who signed these documents in
blank, it was usual to send old forms back and get a
new lot.) As no change had taken place, my father
said, " Of course it was all right. Who said it
wasn't ? " " Well," the man said, " some of the
women neighbors have been telling my wife that
there should have been some ceremony performed."
My father said, " Do I understand that you did not
go to a clergyman and be married ? " " No," he said,
*' we went right straight home." " Well," my father
said, " you had better hurry off" as soon as you can,
and go to a clergyman and have the ceremon}'^ per-
formed." The man was rather indignant, and said
my father should have told him, I have no doubt
there are many similar instances, and some of them
never rectified.

The post-office supplies some stories showing the
way even official business ran itself in those days.

The post-office in the village of V , in the Long

Point country, is one of the oldest post-offices in
Ontario. Some years ago the post-office inspector
received an official letter that it was an extraordinary
circumstance that no return of dead letters had ever
been received from that post-office, and he was ordered

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to make an immediate personal inspection. As the
postmaster was the oldest inhabitant, most respectable,
and had been in office more than fifty years, the in-
spector wrote him a polite note, asking explanation.
By return mail he received a reply : " That he was
glad the department had taken notice of this at last ;
that he had two or three rooms, now, nearly filled
with these old letters."

A sheriff had a narrow escape in those early days Negfo"^
from his "perfectly reasonable" way of doing busi-
ness. A negro had been sentenced to be hanged.
The sheriff was a sportsman in the duck-shooting line,
and was always in demand. A party of his friends
came for a shoot from a distance a few days before the
hanging. The sheriff's sporting instincts were too
much for him. He went to the. negro, and asked him
if he would mind l)eing hanged on Tuesday instead of
Thursday. The negro said, " Well, Sheriff, you have
been so kind to me in de gaol dat I don't want to
spoil your sport. You can hang me on Tuesday , but
do it early in de morning ; juss as I wake up." He was
hanged accordingly on that morning. The incident
soon reached the authorities, and it was unpleasant for
the sheriff for some time, but his friends saved him.
There was a very neighborly feeling, and a good deal
of give and take in those days.

The first religious instruction received by the young
in the first settlements was from the Methodist, Bap-
tist, and Presbyterian circuit riders, and they did
admirable work in the early days. All denominations
attended the camp-meetings (there were no churches),
and the settlers met there once a year.

A Methodist divine, who subsecjuently became "-ong Prayers,
eminent throughout Canada, began his ministry as a
circuit rider in the Long Point settlement. Ridino-
through the bush towards the close of day he came to
a shanty with a light in the window, and latch string

16

hanging out. He tethered his horse under a tree, and
went in. There were fifteen or twenty men, all new
settlers, who, after working on their various locations
during the day, sought shelter there in the evening.
No class in those days had any distinctive dress. The
divine asked if he could shelter there for the night.
They said : " Certainly, there is always room for
another." After a few remarks, he sat down and took
a Bible out of his pocket, and said it was always
his custom to read a chapter before lying down for the
night. While reading his chapter, as the expression
now is, he " took stock " of the surroundings, and made
up his mind it was a proper field for his ministry.
He then said he would like to say a prayer, and if
they had no objections, he would pray aloud. They
said they would be very glad to hear a prayer. Some
of them said they had not heard a prayer for five or
six years. This was the minister's opportunity.
They were experts in prayer in those days, and if
there was any wickedness in you they would surely
find it out. He prayed for about half an hour, and no
doubt made every man feel himself a sinner, with a de-
sire to do better. One man, however, got up and put on
his hat and boots, about to leave the room. The minis-
ter said to him : " My good man, I thought there would
be room for us all ; I hope you are not leaving on my
account?" "Well," said the man, "that's -not it; I
have been listening to your prayer, and I have made
up my mind that I'll not sleep all night in the samje
room with any man who has asked forgiveness for
as many sins as you 'ave acknowledged you 'ave
committed." It is said that the minister systemati-
cally shortened his prayers after that.
Reiigio That our ancestors carried with them into the

wilderness that relio-ious feeling; which leads to sub-
mission under calamitj'' is part of the history of the
Loyalists. Among my grandfather's books was a

copy of the " Religio Medici," of Sir Thomas Browne.
What I now read was a marked passage : " If thy
Vessel be small in the Ocean of the World, if Mean-
ness of Possessions be thy allotment on Earth, forget
not those Virtues which the great Disposer of all bids
thee to entertain from thy Quality and Condition ;
that is, Submission, Humility, Content of mind, and
Industry. Content may dwell in all Stations. To be
low, but above contempt, may be high enough to be
Happy. But many of low Degree may be higher
than computed, and some Cubits above common
Com mensuration : for in all States Virtue gives
Qualifications and Allowances which make out def ects^
Rough Diamonds are sometimes mistaken for Pebbles,
and Meanness ma}' be Rich in Accomplishments which
Riches in vain desire. The Divine Eye looks upon
high and low differently from that of Man. They
who seem to stand upon Olympus and high mounted
unto our eyes may be but in the Valleys and low
Ground unto His ; for He looks upon those as highest
who nearest approach His Divinity, and those as
lowest who are farthest from it."

NOTE.

The term " U. E. Loyalist " owes its origin to an Order-in-Council
of the Imperial Parliament, of November 9th, 1789, which provided
that " all loyali.sts who had joined the cause of Great Britain before
the Treaty of Separation of 1783, together with their children of both
se.xes, have the distinction of using the letters 'U. E.' after their
names, thus preserving the memory of their devotion to ' an United
Empire.'" This distinction is reverently cherished by thousands of
Canadians of the present day.

In "Ryerson's Loj'alists," vol. ii., pages 130-136, are the following
remarks on the confiscation acts of the states, Rhode Island, Connect-
icut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Virginia, New York, New
Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, North Carolina, South
Carolina, and Georgia :

"The Draconian Code or the Spanish Inquisition can hardly be-

18

said to exceed in severity and intolerance the acts of the States' Legisla-
tures and Committees above quoted, in which mere opinions are
declared to be treason, as also the refusal to renounce a solemn oath
of allegiance. The very place of residence, the non-presenting one's
self to be tried as a traitor, the mere suspicion of holding loyalist
opinions involved the loss of liberty and property. Scores of i>ersons
were made criminals, not after jury trial, but by name, in acts or
resolutions of legislatures, and sometimes of committees. No modem
civilized country has presented such a spectacle of the wholesale dis-
■posal by name of the rights, liberties and properties, and even lives of
citizens, by inquisition and bigoted bodies, as were here presented
against the Loyalists, guilty of no crime against their neighbors except
holding to the oijinions of their forefathers, and the former opinions
of their present persecutors, who had usurped the power to rob, banish,
and destroy them ; who embodied in themselves, at one and the same
thiie, the functions of law makers, law judges, and law executioners,
and the receivers and disposers, or, as was the case,<the possessors of
the property which they confiscated against the Loyalists."

^be "Minitc^ lempirc Xo^ali6t6' association

OF ONTARIO.

Form of Application for Election of Members, to be filled in
and returned to "The Secretary, U. E. Loyalists'
Association, Toronto."

Name of Candidate,
Mr. Mrs. Miss

Address.

Proposed by

Seconded by.

Name of Candidate's U. E. L. ancestor

State how Candidate is related to said U. E. L. ancestor

Date of arrival in Canada of U. E. L. ancestor, and zvhcre settled.

It is Essential The Regular Meetings

FOR MEMSCRSHIP ARE HELD AT THE

TO BE DESCENDED CANADIAN INSTITUTE,

ON THE MALE OR TORONTO, ON THE

FEMALE SIDE FROM SECOND THURSDAY

A U.E. LOYALIST. OF EACH MONTH AT

4 P.M.

Annual Fee for Non- Residents, 50c.

I llj